{"id":25,"date":"2006-03-05T19:22:59","date_gmt":"2006-03-05T23:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hydeblogbeta\/2006\/03\/05\/poison-pen-letter\/"},"modified":"2007-02-07T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T19:34:14","slug":"poison-pen-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/2006\/03\/05\/poison-pen-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Poison pen letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I found the following rather extraordinary denunciaton on the front endsheet of an otherwise unremarkable book of poems<\/a>. There is no provenance information in this copy, and nothing to suggest what the origin of the poem is, or at whom its vitriol is aimed.<\/p>\n

“Verses to the author of a letter in the public advertiser, signed Graystock: &[?] refused admittance into that paper
\nWhat wretched Grubstreet scribbler of the day,
\nWho prostitutes his venal pen for pay,
\nAt Surry dares the envenomed shaft to aim,
\nAnd with invective loads his patriot name.
\nThat the firm virtues of his generous mind
\nDefy a host of foes like thee combined,
\nMiscreant, take back thy charge of infamy,
\nSot<\/span>, slave<\/span>, & coward<\/span>, thou art all the three.
\nBase sot, in cellars bred, in brothels spawn’d,
\nVile slave, whose principles for bread are pawn’d,
\nImpotent coward, skulking from the light,
\nWhose poniard* like the assassin’s stabs by night.
\nCome forth, grim phantom, & a form assume,
\nBurst the dark shelter of thy native gloom;
\nAnd mark me when thou darst a man appear
\nA man shall meet thee–till then thy sincere
\nDespiser”
\n*(from Johnson’s Dictionary) Poniard: A dagger; a short stabbing weapon. “She speaks poniards, and every word stabs” (Sha.)<\/p>\n

Google, Granger’s Index to Poetry, and Eighteenth Century Collections Online have all failed to turn up the source of this first-class invective, leaving me to wonder if the poem is original to my book. Do any Catablog readers recognize the source of this screed, and if so, who was on the receiving end? Send me an email if you know the answer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found the following rather extraordinary denunciaton on the front endsheet of an otherwise unremarkable book of poems. There is no provenance information in this copy, and nothing to suggest what the origin of the poem is, or at whom its vitriol is aimed. “Verses to the author of a letter in the public advertiser, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-overholt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hydeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}